More opera in the Berlin Philharmonic's coming season

The Berlin Philharmonic released its concert program for the 2016/17 season on Thursday (28.04.2016), launching August 26 and including a total of 122 concerts, 90 of them in Berlin.

A tour of North America in the fall will take the players to venues in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco and Toronto. Guest appearances at Hamburg's new "Elbphilharmonie" and in Athens, London and Germany's Ruhr District are also scheduled.

Sir Simon Rattle's penultimate season

"I think we're going to have a wonderful year filled with fun," said Rattle, who will be hold the baton for a high point of the year, a performance of Puccini's opera "Tosca." Ten operas are on the calendar - an unusually high number for the concert orchestra. Other performances will include György Ligeti's only opera "Le Grand Macabre" and "Herzog Blaubarts Burg" (Duke Bluebeard's Castle) by Béla Bartók.

It is the penultimate season for Sir Simon Rattle as the principal conductor of the world-famous orchestra. In 2017, as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, he will split responsibilities betweden London and Berlin before stepping down from the Berlin Philharmonic the following year. Even thereafter, however, he plans to continue the collaboration and will remain a reisdent of Berlin.

"It's a musical family, and I love my family. I'm excited to continue my work with a different perspective."

The forthcoming season includes concerts led by Rattle's successor, Kirill Petrenko, conducting Mozart's "Haffner Symphony" and Tschaikovsky's " Pathétique." Other guest conductors include Bernard Haitink from the Netherlands, Germany's Christian Theilemann and Italian maestro Riccardo Chailly, currently with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

ct/ (dpa)